The Boys from Syracuse

One of the most enduring of Rodgers&Hart Broadway musicals is The Boys From Syracuse based on Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. In this screen version, the musical score arrived with the main numbers intact, including Sing For Your Supper, This Can't Be Love, and Falling In Love With Love.

Not that A Comedy of Errors isn't bawdy and funny enough in its original version, but imagine Bill Shakespeare strained through Damon Runyon and presented at Minsky's and you have some idea what the film is all about.

Two sets of twins were lost at sea during their childhood during a shipwreck. One set went with father to Syracuse, the other wound up in Ephesus with mom. So an Antipheles and a Dromio grew up in those warring Greek cities without knowing about each other. Father Samuel S. Hinds left Syracuse to search for his other son and that son's twin servant as well. And Allan Jones and Joe Penner, The Boys From Syracuse, set out after him, not realizing what they were going to get involved in when they reached Ephesus.

The laughs are fast and furious, a lot of them provided by Martha Raye who is married to one of the Joe Penners and Joe Penner himself. Allan Jones from Syracuse of course is mistaken by his wife Irene Hervey of Ephesus, but he's got eyes for her sister, Rosemary Lane.

Allan Jones gets to sing Falling In Love With Love which became a standard forever identified with him, almost as much as The Donkey Serenade. In addition Rodgers&Hart wrote another ballad especially for the film version that Jones gets to sing entitled Who Are You. It's a lovely song and it's a question frequently asked in The Boys From Syracuse.

Joe Penner's comedy seemed to be a lot like Lou Costello's and considering both came from burlesque and probably played Minsky's not surprising. Penner even has that patented Costello whistle. Penner died young, a year later while on tour. During the Thirties he was enormously popular on radio and did several films of which The Boys From Syracuse turned out to be his last.

Alan Mowbray and Eric Blore are a pair of confused tailors who keep trying to collect a bill from at least one of the Antipheli. And a very droll performance is contributed by Charles Butterworth as the Duke of Ephesus. If this were done at MGM, Frank Morgan would have had the part.

The Boys From Syracuse is a personal Rodgers&Hart favorite of mine as is Allan Jones. For me this is a not miss film.

Usually Rogers and Hart are credited with the second great book musical with their 1941 flop (later hit) "Pal Joey". That is the show that is most likely to be revived of all their book shows (although "On Your Toes" was successfully revived a few years ago). However, they had several shows with some type of book involved that blended with the songs (and did not just set up song cues). One of the first was "The Boys From Syracuse". It predates Cole Porter's similar Shakespeare based musical comedy, "Kiss Me Kate" by a decade. While that was based on "The Taming of the Shrew", this was based on "The Comedy of Errors". It had a flamingly good score, such as "This Can't Be Love", "Sing For Your Supper", "Come With Me Where The Wine Is Free", "He and She", and "Falling in Love With Love". It was a successful show, starring Eddie Albert, Ronald Graham, Murial Angelus, Marcy Westcott, Wynn Murray, Jimmy Savo, and Teddy Hart. It also stuck pretty close to the original play.

Came this 1940 version, only two years after the Broadway hit. It was jazzed up, with a number of anachronistic "jokes" (set in ancient Greece, someone makes the announcement, "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Ephesus, and all the ships at sea!", imitating the radio introduction of Walter Winchell's show). The Duke of Ephesus was played by that normal tower of strength, comedian Charles Butterworth. Eddie Albert and Ronald Graham played the two Antipholos twins on stage, Allan Jones played both brothers in the film. The twin Dromios were Savo and Hart on stage - an interesting piece of casting. The two comics looked very much alike, and Teddy Hart was the younger brother of lyricist Larry. Savo was a stage comedian who critics compared to Chaplin. Both were known to movie audiences (Savo not too successfully). Hart had been in supporting parts in "Three Men On A Horse" and "After The Thin Man" among other films. For some reason the role of both Dromio was given to Joe Penner.

Penner is one of the mysteries of 1930s humor. He was one of a set of "zanies" who were popular in the early and middle 1930s. They included Jack "Baron Von Munchausen" Pearl, "the Mad Russian", Parkyarkarkus on Eddie Cantor's program. Many of them had some catch phrase that swept the country, like the Mad Russian's "How do you do?", or Pearl's "Vas you dere Sharley?" when his companion dared to question him. Penner had two: "Yooou nahsty man!" and "Wanna buy a duck?" (he had a pet duck named "Googoo"). There was no questioning of their popularity, but this was during the depression. Their success shows that in that trying period, people were desperate to laugh at anything.

Heard nowadays most of their material is trying, particularly the inane and witless Penner. It is odd that the only reason to recall Penner's "Yooou nahsty man!" catch phrase is that a murderer and amateur nightclub singer named Kenneth Neu used it in a song lyric he wrote in prison, awaiting execution (in 1935). Neu used it to refer to the hangman. Hardly a reason to really recall Penner at all.

But it is Penner's presence (twice over) in the film, so we are stuck with it. Jones sings his portion of the songs well. Irene Hervey, Rosemary Lane, and Martha Lane do nicely in this film. So does Alan Mowbray, dependable as ever. Even Butterworth is tolerable to an extent. But Penner sinks it. It was his last real chance for movie success, but as he had little to offer in the way of talent to begin with what could one really expect.

The Boys from Syracuse had a fair bit going for it. It had a great cast, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart have penned some of the greatest songs of musical theatre and it is based on The Comedy of Errors, a riotous and very clever Shakespeare play. The film is good fun, but it does fall short of greatness. Allan Jones does sing beautifully but is a little too wan and strained in the lead role, there could have been more music seeing as it is so good and the film did seem too short. The Boys from Syracuse is a nice-looking film considering the budget, though because of the source material and story it is one of those films that could have been more effective in colour. The songs are just lovely, especially Falling in Love with Love, that and This Can't Be Love are popular and for good reason. The comedy is witty and in particularly Martha Raye's case very funny, while the story still has its spark, the film goes at a good pace and the staging of the songs are both fun and sensitive. The performances from the cast are good, the best performance being from Martha Raye, her sense of comic timing is a joy to joy and there is a real sense of Broadway brashness in it too. The same goes for Joe Penner as well and there are elements of his distinctive comedy style. Eric Blore, Charles Butterorth and Allan Mowbray give great camp supporting turns and seem to really be enjoying themselves. Overall, has its flaws but jolly and spirited, not a great film by all means but a fun one. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The Boys From Syracuse (1940 Universal) starring Alan Jones and Martha Raye is a great classic black and white musical comedy movie, but it disappeared. Why?

The only copy of this movie presently (February 2011) available for sale by WWW.Amazon.Com on DVD costs $134, and that's too much for any sensible (and impoverished) person to pay.

The movie is currently (February 2011) sold through Amazon.Com by "Suzie Quik" of California.

Too bad.

I saw this wonderful movie on television when I was a little boy in the 1950's, and remember every great moment of it. The music (Rodgers and Hart) and the acting are all breathtaking.

But the movie "slipped between the cracks," and is largely forgotten in the present age when "classics" are listed many places, but never include this classic.

That is also true of Wake Up And Live (1937 Fox) starring Alice Faye, Jack Hailey, and Walter Winchell, another great movie almost never listed and discussed when "great movies" are ranked and publicized.

The movie is currently (February 2011) sold through Amazon.Com by "Suzie Quik" of California. It is presently for sale at the whopping price of $135.99, two bucks more than The Boys From Syracuse (1940 Universal) starring Alan Jones and Martha Raye.

It may be that people operating the "Suzie Quik" movie sales service specialize in hard to get movies sold at huge prices. By any measure, $134. and $136 are huge prices, even for rich people.

Hopefully this will change.

The days of "cheap good movies" may be coming to an end, and all this could be a signal about that.

It is well to remember that the history of movies includes a vast number of creations, some of which were and are dazzling, but unknown and largely unavailable to the general public, and even to those few who do know about the "unavailable, unpublicized classic movies."

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Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Com and choose "Tex Allen" "resume" for contact information, movie credits, and biographical information about Tex Allen.

He has reviewed more than 42 movies posted on WWW.IMDb.Com (the world's largest movie information database, owned by Amazon.Com) as of January 2011.

These include: 1. Alfie (1966) 29 July 2009 2. Alien (1979) 24 July 2009 3. All the Loving Couples (1969) 17 January 2011 4. All the President's Men (1976) 16 November 2010 5. American Graffiti (1973) 22 November 2010 6. Animal House (1978) 16 August 2009 7. Bullitt (1968) 23 July 2009 8. Captain Kidd (1945) 28 July 2009 9. Child Bride (1938) 24 September 2009 10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 22 September 2010 11. Destination Moon (1950) 17 January 2011 12. Detour (1945) 19 November 2010 13. Die Hard 2 (1990) 23 December 2010 14. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) 19 November 2010 15. Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) 26 July 2009 16. King Solomon's Mines (1950) 1 December 2010 17. Knute Rockne All American (1940) 2 November 2010 18. Claire's Knee (1970) 15 August 2009 19. Melody Ranch (1940) 10 November 2010 20. Morning Glory (1933) 19 November 2010 21. Mush and Milk (1933) 17 January 2011 22. New Moon (1940) 3 November 2010 23. Pinocchio (1940) 6 November 2010 24. R2PC: Road to Park City (2000) 19 November 2010 25. Salt (2010) 24 August 2010 26. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) 21 January 2011 27. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 1 December 2010 28. The Forgotten Village (1941) 21 January 2011 29. The Great Dictator (1940) 1 November 2010 30. The King's Speech (2010) 19 January 2011 31. The Last Emperor (1987) 20 January 2011 32. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 9 January 2011 33. The Man in the White Suit (1951) 5 August 2009 34. The Philadelphia Story (1940) 5 November 2010 35. The Social Network (2010) 19 January 2011 36. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 1 August 2009 37. The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) 14 August 2009 38. The Witchmaker (1969) 21 July 2009 39. Thousands Cheer (1943) 3 December 2010 40. Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) 24 November 2010 41. Wake Up and Live (1937) 27 July 2009 42. Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 1 August 2009

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Written by Tex Allen, Antioch College graduate (BA in Education), and also SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen.

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Once again the score had been too low for the merit of the movie. First what is this - it is almost but not a spoof on "Comedy Of Errors" - it is not because it faithfully follows the premises of the original - and there is no compromising in that - but there are certain spoofs or one could even say disguised satires - bringing the current day practices - including the bribing the jury at the end or the Cheer Girl banners.

But the most captivating person in the whole narrative was Charles Butterworth as the Duke - though elected one - as the two condemned tailors mentioned of voting for him in the election. That is one role which had been added, no similar character existed in original - but with real "Effect". Afterwards, I realised, his character was based almost on "Vitalstatistix" and how... !

Unlike all other adaptations of this drama - I have seen quite a few - this was entirely new and refreshing look at the plot.

Highly recommended - but for the quality of the picture - from the DVD I bought from Vic, no one probably bothered to remaster this - thankfully the sound was still excellent, and that took a lot of sting out.